We celebrated with our family and lots of food and well wishes for the year. I brought bunches of tulips for the my relatives, but saved a few for our place. It may even be the first time we’ve ever had flowers in the house! A small luxury but def. something I want to do more often.

Making: chocolate Banana Bread from Orangette (Even though this is my 3rd time making it, I rushed and forgot the sugar after putting the mix in the baking dish. It still turned out okay even after remixing sugar in again. Maybe a tad too dense. Serves me right)

Buying: Snagged these last month for a good deal. Even though I have a soft spot for boots, these are more practically and almost work year round here. They look almost identical to the one’s I owned and wore to death from American Eagle when I was a teen.

After a week or so of 75+ weather, winter has returned to Houston, which makes me happy because we don’t get enough of it! I just finished up a week of finals, and this 3 day weekend means getting caught up on sleep and planning for the next semester. BJ and I finally went to Baby Barnaby’s for brunch the first time (the line deterred us in the past). So yummy!

I have been bad at getting familiar with our new surroundings. We just started walking through the parks and gardens across the street after two months of living here, and I can’t believe how many paths and trails there are around us. A few weeks ago, we took a different route home and we came across this curious little building kind of at the edge of downtown. I’m so curious about what it used to be. A gas station? (Update: BJ is much better at internet research than me. It’s an installation by Andrei Molodkin painted on a 1940’s gas station.) There are relatively few interesting buildings and structures in Houston compared to other big cities—ours is great at demolishing its history—so it’s always fun to stumble across places like this, the gems hidden in plain sight.